Survival for advanced breast cancer 'lower in UK than in other developed countries'

Breast cancer survival is lower in the UK than in other developed countries such as Australia, Canada, Norway and Sweden, new figures show.

The International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership - led by Cancer Research UK scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - looked at data on more than 257,000 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2000 and 2007 in the UK, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

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They found that three-year survival was just 87-89 per cent in the UK and Denmark, compared with 91-94 per cent in the other four countries.

Researchers also showed that survival for women with late-stage breast cancer was lower in the UK than in the other countries, even though patients were not being diagnosed at a later stage.

Three-year survival for women with late-stage breast cancer was 28 per cent in the UK, compared with 42 per cent in Sweden.

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Lead author Dr Sarah Walters, whose findings are published in the British Journal of Cancer, said: 'In the UK, women are diagnosed at a similar stage as elsewhere, but survival is lower than women with the same stage of disease in other countries.

'We should now investigate whether the treatment of women with later-stage breast cancer meets international standards.'

Eluned Hughes, head of public health at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said that 1,000 extra lives would be saved in England alone each year if the country's breast cancer survival rates matched the best in Europe.

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